The invention concerns a cross-counter-stream module for material and/or heat exchange done with bundles of hollow filaments closed at their ends by a housing, and apparatus for driving the material stream about the outside of the hollow filaments.
Cross-counter-stream heat exchangers with arrangements for driving the material stream are well known in industrial process engineering, whereby one material stream is led through a tube bundle and the other material stream taking part in the exchange is led around the tubes. Components are provided for driving the material stream around the tubes, which bring about the cross-counter stream. With such heat exchangers having bundles of tubes, the laws of heat exchange have been extensively investigated, so that the efficiency of the heat exchange is calculable and optimizable for a determined direction of flow. One therefore endeavors to employ the same mathematical relationships also to heat exchange with hollow filament modules, and, since the material exchange proceeds according to analogous mathematical relationships, also to material exchange for modules with hollow filament bundles. Since hollow filaments are produced from fiber-forming polymers, it causes difficulties to construct suitable liquid density components for driving the material stream around the hollow filaments.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,082,670 describes a cross-counter-stream module with hollow filament bundles, in which the flow is obtained through an appropriate configuration of the housing.
A cross-stream module is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,536,611, with which the hollow fillaments, held fast, are coiled about a central distributor tube, through which a liquid is led, transverse to the filament axes, about the hollow filaments, and which is drained through the wall of the housing.
German Offenlegungsschrift DE-OS No. 2,721,444 describes a hollow filament dialyser, with which the hollow filaments are connected together with the aid of fibers into a transverse-lying hollow filament path, and this is coiled about a core. A determined direction of flow for the liquid circulating around is not, however, provided.